I remember when I got my first medium format
film camera. I could now produce much higher
resolution prints than with my 35 mm because
of the larger negative. 2¼ X 2¼. When I got my
first 4 X 5 camera I could produce pictures bigger
than life! Today the talk about cameras is in
megapixels instead of film size but the basic
concept is still the same. Lens and film were
factors in the overall quality and today's digital
cameras are dependent on the technology that goes
into their design, not all 3 megapixels cameras
are the same. Shopping around for the best quality
and features to suit your needs is no different than
shopping for a new film camera or rod and reel.

The equivalent of negative size in digital cameras
is the megapixel size. The higher the number, the
larger the picture it will produce. There are also
settings on the camera to select the size you want
to take. Larger, higher number of pixels, photos
will produce higher quality pictures which are good
for printing. They are larger in file size and the
memory media will not hold as many. For viewing on
a computer or use on a web site, you don't need a
large (high number of pixels) picture and you can
fit more on the media. Rather than discuss cameras
here I want to talk about dealing with the pictures
you get from them.

Let's say you take the pictures at a medium quality,
which is usually the default. The next step, very
frustrating for some, is transferring them to your
computer. One way is with software and a cable,
hopefully not old serial but USB, to connect to
your computer that is supplied with the camera.
My advice is to carefully read the directions and
follow them exactly. Make sure the software is
correct for your computers operating system. If
you have problems, uninstall and try again. If you
still have problems try downloading new software or
try to contact support, if that's possible. The other
way, which I use, is a card reader. I, personally,
don't want any software on my computer that I don't
need. Especially when these installations usually
add a bunch of stuff I don't want. A card reader
needs only to be installed to a USB port and I find
them to be more convenient and useful for other things
like data backup, but that's another subject. The
readers are inexpensive and most can read all the
different types of memory cards. The process is easy.
Remove the card from the camera, insert it in the
reader slot and it is just like a drive on your
computer with it's own drive letter. You can copy
the picture files to a place on your hard drive,
using drag and drop or copy and paste just as you
would from a CD or floppy. Or directly look at and
load with your photo editing software. Some advantages
to a card reader are: the camera is not in the way on
the computer table, doesn't need to be plugged in or
have the batteries drain.

Now that you have them on your computer you can erase
them from the memory card. MAKE SURE that they
are copied on to the computer. A good test is: take the
memory card out of the reader or if you are connecting
directly to the camera, disconnect the camera. If you
can still look at the pictures on your computer, then
they are on your computer. When you transfer them make
sure it is to a place or folder that you know how to
get back to.

If you do accidentally erase your pictures from your
cameras card, there is still hope. In the computer world
files, such as the ones on your computer or on the cameras
media, are not really erased. They are just not accessible
anymore once you delete them. Computer storage devices
like your hard drive or a camera memory card use a system
much like the table of contents from a book. The computer
displays it contents from the FAT (File Allocation Table.)
When you delete something it removes the file name from it
but the actual files stay there until they are overwritten
with new ones. Your computer keeps track of those deleted
files in the "Trash." Computer operating systems also
protect them from being overwritten until you "empty the
trash." Nothing protects the erased files on a memory card
so if you fill it with pictures again after erasing, they
are lost. However if you don't overwrite them there is
software that can recover the access to these files. Some
examples of software for this is: Digital Picture Recovery
(winutils.net), MediaRECOVER (mediarecover.com) and
PhotoRescue 2.0 (datarescue.com.)

The extension jpg or jpeg is an acronym that stands for
Joint Photographic Experts Group. It is a format designed
for photographic files that uses very high quality
compression technology of the type known as "lossy"
compression. You lose some quality but have a much
reduced file size which is important for Internet
related usage. This is the most widely used method
for photos on the Internet. For files that don't need
to produce the many colors and gradients needed for
photographs a common compression technique is gif
(Graphics Interchange Format.) This is a good method
for sketches, logos and anything with a limited number
on colors.

Quality digital cameras are capable of producing very
large files important to use for printed pictures. They
must be compressed as well as reduced in display dimensions
to be viewed on a computer monitor and used on a web site
or posted on a bulletin board such as the one here at FAOL.
Print quality picture files are not suitable for Internet
placement or e-mail use. You would not want to compress
files for printing because it is easier to notice the
results of lossy compression on printed pictures. You
will need photo editing software and an understanding
of how pixels, file size, screen size, print size and
compression relate to prepare the photo. Editing software
probably came with your camera. This may suit your needs.
It may be a "limited version" which will suffice or one
that could be upgraded. It may, however be something that
you find inadequate or just too unfriendly. In that case
you might shop around for something else. A few examples
of inexpensive or free software are:

Paint Shop Pro 8.0®:
Popular and very capable

Micrografx Picture Publisher Professional 10®:
Loaded with many features and creative tools.

Adobe Photoshop Elements®:
Most of the features of Photoshop with a much lower price.

IfranView®:
Not as sophisticated or feature rich as the ones
above but does a good job and it's free.

Other than the free one you can find these particular
packages for as little as $40 to $60.

With the use of software you can turn your pictures
into manageable files with the properties suitable
for uses such as:

Printing: This is where the large high
resolution files will be best. Cropping is a
useful tool to isolate the important part or
subject in composing but will reduce the size
that you will be able to print. That is why
you should try to compose the picture when you
take it. There are other tools to sharpen lighten,
darken, etc. Each of these will degrade the overall
quality some but still may improve the appearance
and are useful. Of course the better you take the
picture, the less "adjusting" and therefore better
final quality.

Posting: You can place them on a web site or
post them to a Bulletin board. The directions for
posting them here can be found on the top right of
the posts page using the link "UBB code" When posting
pictures it is important to reduce them to a manageable
size and compress them for fast loading.

E-mail: Attaching a picture or any file to
an e-mail is accomplished by selecting the "Attach"
function in the window when you are actually writing
the e-mail. It can be accessed by clicking on an
button or icon that is a paper clip. Another way
is to select "Attach" in the menu on top under "File"
or "Insert." This will bring up a little window that
you can navigate to the file you want. Many get lost
at this point because they don't know where they have
saved their picture files. You should save them in a
folder that you will remember so you can easily
navigate to it. You can specify that when saving.
Learning to navigate your computer is very important
and lack of this ability holds a lot of people back.
Once you have found the file you can double click it
or single click and click the "Save" or "Attach" button.
You should then see the file name appearing somewhere
in the compose or writing screen. When you send the
e-mail it will be attached to it. Preparing pictures
with a small file size is important to e-mail just
as it is to posting.

Now we need to talk about preparing the pictures
for these various uses.

Continued next week ...

Tip of the Week

Learn to use the Find or Search on your computer
to find, "File or Folders." By using wild cards
it is a good way to find things like picture
files or Microsoft Word
®
documents for example. To find all the files on your
computer that end in the extension jpg, which is
the most common for picture files, type *.jpg in
the search box. If your search is for the C drive
you will find all the jpg files on that drive. It
will also tell you the "path," which is the folder
and sub folder (if applicable) that they are located
in. Using *.doc will find all the
Word®
documents. The asterisk (*) is the wild card that
means anything. Note: this is for search on your
own computer, wild cards may not apply to other types
of search.